Novelist and former vice-governor uses real-life graft as inspiration for new book

A successful Chinese novelist and former vice-governor of a province that has fallen foul of the nation’s sweeping anti-graft campaign is now writing a new story about corruption.

“Really interesting stories about corrupt officials have been going on around me in real life in recent years, “ Zhang Ping, the former Shanxi official, who is now vice-chairman of the party-aligned Chinese Writers’ Association, told the Beijing Times.

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“I didn’t want these stories to be wasted and forgotten, so I’ve used them as the basis of my novels,” he said on the sidelines of this year's National People's Congress meetings in Beijing. 

Wang Rulin, the province’s current Communist party chief, told last week’s Shanxi delegation meeting during the parliamentary session that the existence of “clusters” of corruption had hit the province “like a landslide”.

Seven provincial level officials and dozens of city level officials have been investigated for corruption since President Xi Jinping launched his anti-graft campaign two years ago.

At least five chairmen of coal mining companies have also been detained and investigated for corruption.

Zhang’s successful career as the author of corruption-themed novels began in 1981.

One of his earlier works, Choice – a novel about corruption during China’s reform of state enterprises in the early 1990s – was made into a hit 2000 film.